


Maybe Next Time (I'll Win)

by asexual-fandom-queen (writeordietrying)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Future Fic, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Minor Bruce Banner/Tony Stark, Minor Brunnhilde | Valkyrie/Thor (Marvel), Original Character(s), POV Original Female Character, Past Character Death, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-11-04 15:41:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17900876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writeordietrying/pseuds/asexual-fandom-queen
Summary: It’s quiet for a moment – eerily quiet. Cities and towns used to be filled with noise and chaos and sounds of life. Now, the only sounds are ones of danger, and their absence makes her hair stand on end.In a post-apocalyptic world, Virginia Banner and Ulla Odinson share a rare, quiet moment.





	Maybe Next Time (I'll Win)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sleepypoison](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleepypoison/gifts).



> Have a little post-apocalyptic, next generation drabble, complete with both too little and too much oddly specific world-building that's kinda fun to think about, if you're into that sort of thing. 
> 
> Written as a prompt fill on Tumblr using this [fanfic trope selector](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/e/2PACX-1vS1lSll6PFJjtPiRnc09FWe64xJBQT7V9qLgccKo6HXfEFwt7g3mVRjEnTkyHfLNOsGEfWjVAPYpYpF/pub?start=true&loop=true&delayms=50&slide=id.g504e7ecbd1_0_1330) (warning for rapidly moving on-screen text, if you're sensitive to that)
> 
> Title inspired by [Maybe This Time](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fD1hWjffGeE) from Cabaret, which I find both oddly fitting and not fitting at all, but you can decide for yourself.

Gravel crunches heavily under Ginny’s feet. The unyielding scents of ash and sweat linger in her nostrils, burning and raw. It’s eerie, walking through the hollowed out ruins of the old, industrial building. The film of grime clinging to her skin feels like a million eyes, the echo of her paces the creeping crawl of spindly robot arms, following her. Watching her. 

A sudden clattering of rubble sets Ginny spinning on her heels. Raising her hand is a reflex – willing the swarm of nanites curled around her chest to migrate down her arm, to form a repulsor beam in her cupped palm. 

She lets off a shot. 

“Oi,” sputters a very indignant, very familiar voice. Ginny watches strong, chiseled arms swat the repulsor beam away, rough, calloused hands tamping down the fire that’s caught at the hem of an army green tank top. The stilted, smokey-blue light cast through the sunken roof highlights taupe tones under brown skin. 

“Odin’s Arsehole! Would you watch where you fire that thing? We aren’t all of us tough as Asgardians, yeah?”  

A chill runs up Ginny’s spine. The swish of her ponytail against the nape of her neck turns her stomach. 

“Ulla.” 

Ulla rolls her eyes, kicking the rubble at her feet with the steel toe of her mud-caked boot. Her smile is disarmingly casual as she maneuvers around the wreckage to draw closer. Ginny’s shoulders drop. 

“Obviously,” Ulla replies. “Would it hurt you to think before you act?” 

Ginny shrugs with one shoulder, then turns again, giving Ulla her back. She hears the rasp of Ulla’s fingers through her short, wavy hair, followed by her deep, long-suffering sigh. 

“Penny for your thoughts, Virginia Banner?” There’s something ritualistic about hearing her full name from Ulla’s mouth, the way her lips curve around the vowels, tongue languid and slow, dropping consonants. It stirs up the faintest traces of a smile. 

Picking at the raw, bloodied skin around the beds of her nails, Ginny replies, “we haven’t come across a single bot in four days. That doesn’t worry you?” 

“I suppose if you’re one to look a gift horse in the mouth, it does,” Ulla says. 

Ginny frowns. “I’m serious.” 

“As a coma,” Ulla replies. A warm, familiar hand lands on Ginny’s shoulder, and Ginny allows herself to be moved, to be spun around so Ulla’s deep, brown eyes can look into her own, every bit as deep and brown. 

“I know how bad this is, Ginny,” Ulla says. “It’s  _ End of Days _ bad. I get that. But if I’m constantly looking over my shoulder, I’m going to wear myself into the ground before I’ve had the chance to do anything about it. And I can’t let that be how this story ends.” 

Ginny worries her lip. It tastes faintly of copper. “Anxiety,” she says. “It– uh. It runs in families, you know.”

“Let us look over your shoulder for you then, yeah?” Ulla offers. “At least to rest. You’re jumpy enough to kill us all before the apocalyptic hellscape we live in’s had the chance.”  

Ginny’s answering smile is rueful, and it makes Ulla purse her lips. Ginny taps her bicep with the back of her hand. “‘Fraid it doesn’t work that way, Thunderstruck.”

She takes a step back, putting distance between herself and Ulla, to pace backward through the pulverized mess of what used to be a concrete floor. “Why don’t you go rally the troops, huh? It’s been a week since we lost radio contact with Nat. I’m sure Hawkeye Lite is about ready to jump ship. We need to hit the rendezvous point before there’s no one left to rendezvous with.” 

Ulla frowns. “Cooper and Lila are still MIA,” she argues. “He’ll not just up and leave.” 

“Oh, believe me,” Ginny says. “That might be the best case scenario.”  

Ulla takes a purposeful step back, arms spreading wide. “Fine,” she says. “We’ll give it another few hours before we stop to make camp. I’ll get everyone going.” 

Ginny nods, but makes no move to follow Ulla as she takes another step back. 

Ulla frowns. “Are you not coming?” 

Ginny diverts her gaze upward, combing through what’s left of the rafters, looking through dinge and grime for flashes of bright, stainless silver. “Go ahead,” she says. “I’ll catch up. I just wanna do one last sweep of the place. Make sure we’re not being followed.”

Ulla sighs. It sounds deep and perturbed. “You could at least give the apocalypse a chance to be the thing that does you in.” 

Ginny doesn’t reply, nor does she dare to look over at Ulla as she speaks. It’s quiet for a moment – eerily quiet. Cities and towns used to be filled with noise and chaos and sounds of life. Now, the only sounds are ones of danger, and their absence makes Ginny’s hair stand on end. 

Finally, Ulla’s boots track through the rubble, fading away into nothing until a fire burns in Ginny’s chest. She wipes fervently at the wetness on her checks, then reaches into the pocket of her fraying tactical pants and pulls out a small, folded paper square. 

The image is faded, almost to nothing in the areas where it’s creased. Ginny unfolds it with careful, shaking fingers, and runs the same fingers reverently across the smiling faces she uncovers. Three pairs of dark brown eyes stare back at her, all sandwiched together in a loving embrace. They’re so familiar, yet she almost doesn’t know them from memory. It’s sits with her uncomfortably, how time and trauma and violence pull memories apart like candy floss. Even memories of herself.  Ginny traces the lines of two vivid orange pigtails, and the empty space where a front tooth is missing from a child’s innocent smile. 

“We just have to find Strange,” she whispers to the two men smiling up at her from her photograph. Even now, all these years later, she feels the weight of them pressed solidly against each of her shoulders. “Wherever he’s hidden himself, Billy thinks he’s close to finding a way in. We’ll find him, and then this’ll all be over. We’ll fix everything, okay?” 

There’s something terrifying about the prospect of starting over, of finding Strange and resetting the timeline and erasing the last decade of her life. Erasing the way it feels to have Ulla’s hand on her shoulder, steady and hopeful and optimistic in a time when hope and optimism are all but dead. 

The last memory she has of her fathers is around the breakfast island. Smells of motor oil and cardamom and pancakes, the sizzle of them frying on the stove, the rough scratch of sleep-heavy laughter, nimble fingers tressing her hair, massaging her scalp, while the sun filters lazily through the windows, all of Manhattan spread out beneath them. 

It’s an easy trade. 

“I’ll see you soon.”  

**Author's Note:**

> Be sure to leave a kudos, a comment, and/or come say hi on [Tumblr](http://www.asexual-fandom-queen.tumblr.com)!


End file.
